


The Birthday of Eternity

by panjianlien



Category: Terry Pratchett - Discworld
Genre: Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:Lina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 02:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panjianlien/pseuds/panjianlien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death has a difficult client and goes to Nanny Ogg for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Birthday of Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> None of these characters are mine. Nor is the universe in which they live. But I sure do have fun visiting from time to time. The title comes from Seneca's _Epistulae Morales_: "_...dies iste, quem tamquam extremum formidas, aeterni natilis est_." (The day which you fear as your last is but the birthday of eternity.)

Nanny Ogg knew who it was the instant she heard the knock. Not that she had some secret magical field around her door, or a thaumaturgical doorknocker that showed her an octarine image of the face of the one who approached. The giveaway was the noise of one of her daughters-in-law screaming, then fainting dead away into the snow along the side path between the house and the back gate. Thelma was a sturdy girl from down Sto Lat way, and there were only one or two things that would set a girl like that to fainting, and it was the wrong time of year for the other one. Thelma's egg basket had landed in a nice deep snowdrift, though, and it was the snowdrift that had formed on top of a nice deep leaf pile, so that was all right.

So it was time, was it? It would have to happen right when she was in the middle of a sock, wouldn't it? And it wasn't as if she'd had time to finish turning the heel. She set down her knitting and went to the door.

GREETINGS, GYTHA OGG.

Dressed in the long black robe of his office, his scythe blade glinting in the brilliant sun of a snowy afternoon, Death extended his free hand in what would've been a friendly way had his hand, and indeed the rest of him, not been quite so skeletal.

"Funny, I thought you'd be taller," Nanny Ogg mused, shaking it.

MANY PEOPLE SAY THAT. I AM NOT SURE WHY. MAY I COME IN?

"Is that necessary?"

YES.

Nanny Ogg wasn't entirely sure what to think. Wasn't he supposed to give his scythe a swish and then pop! off you went? Nanny looked down, just to be sure she hadn't already fallen down onto the rag rug. She hadn't, which was a good thing, as Greebo had recently deposited a bit less than three-quarters of a mouse on the corner of the rug, right where her head would've landed. She had just had a bath not a week ago-the neighbors were recovering nicely, though-and would've hated to go to her eternal rest with previously chewed mouse as a hairdressing.

"Why?"

Death looked down at his feet for a moment, as if he were a bit ashamed of what he had to say next.

I HAVE COME TO ASK YOUR ASSISTANCE, GYTHA OGG.

"Is that all? Why didn't you say so? Cor, you gave me a fright, you did!"

Nanny's smile wreathed her single remaining tooth in concentric circles of good-natured creases. She ushered in her guest, brushing the snowflakes off his shoulders with a mother-hennish flick, shouting back at the kitchen for someone to put a kettle on. Back on familiar ground, she showed Death into the parlor, bustling and humming as she got him settled into the chair nearest the fire, then sat down herself, picking up her needles.

The knitting was partly practical. Nanny's daughters-in-law simply could not grasp that in order for the stockings to go all the way up, they had to get big enough at the top end for there to be half of the lower portion of a nearly spherical Ogg stuffed in them, but the foot part still had to be dainty enough to be snug, because Nanny still had a saucy ankle and wasn't ashamed of it either. Knitting them required an ample supply of wool, which the daughters-in-law had, but also a fiendish disregard of topographical logic, which they did not. So Nanny knit them herself. But knitting for Nanny Ogg was also partly strategic. There was something about the sight of a woman of a certain age with her hands full of wool that seemed to soothe people who needed to unburden themselves. Death, however, sat stiffly in the armchair opposite and stared at his knees.

The rattle and squeak of the tea trolley came as far as the parlor door, then stopped. There was a delicate rap on the doorframe. The trolley was pushed into the doorway, where it stood motionless and apparently unmanned. The daughter-in-law pushing it had, it seemed, been warned about the nature of the guest.

"Bring it in!" Nanny called.

"I won't!" replied the daughter-in-law.

"And why not?" inquired Nanny, pleasantly enough.

"Because Thel says you've got Death in there with you."

"All the more reason for you to come in, then, so's you'll recognize him when the time comes," Nanny said in a voice that made it clear that such a time might come quite a bit quicker than otherwise if she weren't quick about it.

The tea trolley came in on cautious, squeaking wheels, dragging a miserable daughter-in-law behind it. Upon the trolley sat a fat brown teapot shrouded in a misshapen purple tea cozy quilted by one of Nanny Ogg's granddaughters, who had additionally embroidered "I LOVE MY GRAN" on it in white and pink. Next to it was a plate heaped with biscuits, both the crispy kind (for visitors) and the soft kind with sultanas in and icing on (for everybody, but especially Nanny, who grabbed one as soon as it was within reach), and next to that was a plate of bread and butter, the butter not so much spread as laid on like slices of cheese. A jolly yellow sugar bowl rode along beside them, and a little dish of lemon slices with all the seeds carefully taken out, and a milk jug shaped like a cow. The cow jug was painted rather poorly with black splotches. It had a tiny jingle bell hung 'round its neck on a bit of red yarn. Death stared at the jug. It had a little porcelain udder, complete with four ineptly paint-splotched teats. The milk, however, was clearly meant to pour out a hole in its nose. Nanny Ogg did not seem to find it out of the ordinary. He looked at Nanny Ogg's daughter-in-law. The daughter-in-law bobbed the quickest, slightest curtsey she could manage and fled the room.

I FEEL RATHER LIKE THAT COW.

"Mmmm?" Nanny asked around her mouthful of biscuit.

EVERYTHING'S COME OUT WRONG.

Nanny hadn't been aware that anything came out of skeletons at all. Skeletons were, in fact, to the best of Nanny Ogg's awareness, what you got when everything that could come out, had. He must have meant it in the mettyfor way. She wasn't sure what that meant, either. Was he, perhaps, accidentally bringing people back to life? It didn't seem likely. An ineffable sense of fatality emanated from him. It was all right as long as you didn't think about it too much.

Nanny poured out the tea, one cup for Death, one cup for herself. "Lemon? Sugar? Milk?"

SUGAR, PLEASE. TWO LUMPS.

Sugar administered, Nanny Ogg sat back with her cup in one hand and a biscuit in the other and took a noisy sip, then sighed contentedly. "That's a jolly cuppa, that is. Now suppose you tell me what you mean by everything coming out wrong?"

IT'S MISTRESS WEATHERWAX.

Nanny stopped in mid-slurp.

SHE REFUSES TO COME WITH ME.

"Cor. I didn't know people could."

Nanny was genuinely surprised, yet at the same time not surprised a bit. If there were anyone who could refuse the advances of this particular tall dark gentleman, it would be Esme. After all, she'd refused all the others.

I WENT THIS MORNING. SHE WAS ASLEEP. BUT BEFORE I COULD DO WHAT WAS NECESSARY, SHE WOKE.

"She probably heard you coming."

BUT I AM DEATH. I ARRIVE WITHOUT WARNING.

"And she's a witch and has keen ears. Prob'ly I just can't hear it here in Lancre town, what with all the noise. But out there in the woods where all you ever hear is quiet, you probably sound like a sack of dice, all those rattly bones."

Death was fairly certain he did not rattle. Not even a little. He was Death. Silent as the grave, et cetera. Besides, it wasn't just that Granny Weatherwax had woken up. Death had taken countless wide-awake people in his time. It was that she had woken up and stared at him, and it hadn't been the uncomprehending scared-rabbit stare of a bewildered old woman. It hadn't been frightened at all. Or bewildered. Granny Weatherwax knew exactly who he was, and furthermore she knew exactly why he was there. And she stared at him. Just stared, her eyes so sharp they looked like they'd give his scythe a run for its money.

There had been a long, uncomfortable silence. Then Death cleared his throat. Whereupon Esme had made a nasty comment about the kind of man what comes into a female's bedroom without knocking, and to his surprise Death had found himself apologizing and backing out the way he came.

Death hung his head. He held his teacup in both bony hands in his lap and stared shamefacedly into its depths.

So Esme had cowed Death himself into turning tail, eh? Nanny Ogg wished she'd had the forethought to lay odds on it. Could've made a lot of money, she could. Oh well. Too late for that now. Instead, Nanny Ogg leaned over and patted him on the shoulder.

"Now, now, don't be so hard on yourself. You haven't done anything wrong."

OH BUT I HAVE.

"Really?"

I HAVE FAILED IN MY DUTY.

"Well, I wouldn't call it failing, exactly. You've got to get a running start, with Esme. She's a dear, once you get to know her. Just a bit... set in her ways."

I FAILED TO COLLECT HER.

"So you'll try again," Nanny consoled. "Biscuit?"

The Grim Reaper shook his head. I FAILED THREE TIMES.

Now, for the first time, Nanny Ogg blinked. It was her turn to stare at Death. She'd been told, long ago, when she was learning her first spells at her grandmother's knee, that if any person could get Death to pass them by thrice, Death became their servant. In order to die, they had to summon him by name. Effectively, it meant a person could live forever, if they wanted to. Gytha had never been sure if she believed it or not.

"So, er, what'd you do then? Smash her hourglass?"

I WOULD NEVER SMASH AN HOURGLASS, MRS. OGG.

"Please, call me Nanny. Everyone else does."

Death shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"So what did you do?"

FOR THE MOMENT I HAVE REVERSED IT.

"Reversed? I don't understand."

From a fold of his robe, Death produced an exquisite hourglass, palm-sized, its curves made of the finest crystal and its bases of a lovely densely-grained black wood. Around the rim of what was now the topmost end marched the words ESMERELDA WEATHERWAX, upside-down. The top bulb of the glass was chock-full of fine, silvery sand that sifted slowly, grain by grain, down into the empty bottom.

"You mean she's getting younger by the second? Is that really how it's supposed to go? I was told that if Death-I mean, if you-failed to take someone three times, you just didn't come again unless the person called your name. I never heard anything about the person going backwards."

THIS IS A TEMPORARY MEASURE. THERE WAS... AN IRREGULARITY. THAT IS WHY I HAVE COME TO SEE YOU, MRS. OGG.

Nanny heard him, but didn't precisely listen. At the notion of a reversed Esme, her mind had gone galloping off into other realms. "I mean, it'll be fine for the first thirty years, I expect. But I warn you now that all hell's going to break loose when she has to go through The Change backwards. Mark my words. Fortunately for me I'll be long dead by then."

Nanny paused, then looked up at her guest. "Er, I will, won't I?"

I AM NOT AT LIBERTY TO SAY, MRS. OGG.

Cut off at that particular pass, Nanny Ogg's attention snapped back to the matter at hand. She straightened up and tossed back the remainder of her tea, then shoved her arm down alongside the seat cushion of her chair. She made a face as she rummaged in the mysterious depths of the upholstery beneath her rear end. Then she grinned. With a triumphant flourish she produced a small brown bottle, and unstoppered it.

"What do you say we have a wee dram, then, and you explain to me just exactly what happened?"

Nanny tipped a share into each cup, then sat back and listened.

The first time Death had called on Granny Weatherwax, she had stared him down and shamed him out of her bedroom. The second time he'd called on her, he had tried a more polite approach, going to her door and knocking. "You again?" Granny Weatherwax had spat. "I told you before, I know what you're up to and I want nothing to do with it!" Then she slammed the door in his stunned and silent face.

The third time, determined not to be surprised and not to take no for an answer, he had gone to the door and knocked several times to no response. Eventually he had walked through the door and into the tiny, impeccably tidy cottage, but seen no sign of the old lady until he finally, tentatively, stuck his head through the open bedroom door. There, below an open window that let a small sifting of snow blow in from the windowsill, lay Granny Weatherwax, still as stone beneath the coverlet, her arms crossed over her chest. Tucked between her forearms and her formidably-swaddled bosom was a piece of paper. On the piece of paper was written, in pencil letters that showed signs of significant concentration, "I ATEN'T DEAD." Below that, in smaller letters, underlined twice, she had added "(So Don't Try Eny Thing Funny.)"

Upon hearing this, Nanny Ogg pulled the stopper from her brandy bottle again. This time she dispensed with the cup.

"Cooo-eee!" she exclaimed, wiping her lips on the back of her hand and bunging the cork back home. "She always was a bold one, that Esme Weatherwax."

SHE WAS NOT DEAD, MRS. OGG. YET SHE WAS NOT IN HER BODY. I COULD NOT FIND HER ANYWHERE. MOST IRREGULAR.

"No, of course you couldn't find her. She must've known you'd try a third time. She's gone Borrowing."

Death looked at Nanny Ogg with what could almost be described as a plaintive expression of confusion and dismay, although of course Death, being skeletal and well beyond such things as expressions, would have preferred that it were not.

"Oh, here," Nanny said, handing her brandy bottle over. "You look like you could use a drink."

With that, Nanny Ogg explained to Death what Esme was doing, and how it was that she had arranged to be so thoroughly Out when he came back to try again.

* * * * *

The wind bit at Nanny Ogg's ears even through the multiple layers of bonnets and scarves she'd wrapped up in, but as fast as they were going, she could hardly draw breath to complain about the cold. Squinting against the rush of air, she clung ferociously to Death as Binky bore them forward through the snow. Or at least she clung ferociously to something. Death, when squeezed from behind, had proven decidedly less than optimally substantial. There was something about grabbing hold of a rib or an arm bone through his robe that gave her the willies. They felt too slim, too slight, like they might snap if she had to really hang on. She'd groped a bit, hoping to find a leg bone, a hipbone, anything, so long as it felt stouter than the twiggy bits. Nanny found something, too, directly in front. Her mittened fingers wrapped tight around what she was not entirely sure was the pommel of Binky's saddle. If it wasn't, Death was too polite to say so.

_Beautiful cold clean air. Nostrils flaring to catch it, running, running, hooves barely touching. Two on my back, not just one. It's been a long time since there were two. The new one is fat and doesn't know how to ride. No matter. She won't fall off. I won't let her. Running running, lovely rhythm, even and strong. Feel the wind in my tail._

Borne on Binky's magnificent back, Death and Nanny Ogg reached Bad Ass in mere moments. From there, Binky leapt up through the hills to Granny Weatherwax's cottage as if gravity was not a law, but only a mild suggestion that certainly didn't apply to horses, or at least not to horses like Binky, which was in fact the case.

Nanny Ogg giggled as she slithered down Binky's flank, then landed, raising a sizeable pouf of snow. But the minute she straightened herself out she was all business, plowing decisively toward Granny's door and letting herself in without bothering to knock.

_There they go. We have been here before. And then again. But only alone. The Rider seemed upset before when we were here. Not when we came, but when we left. And when we came back. And left again. And returned. And left. Now he walks behind the woman. Into the house. Again I wait. But this time I am going back to the place where I smelled the cabbage below the snow. Yes. A snack would be good._

Inside, the first thing Nanny Ogg did was to make a fire. Granny had banked her embers carefully. No doubt it was a real hardship to have to start a fire from scratch with fingers that were still used to being paws, or claws, or webbed feet, or whatever it was that the creature whose mind Granny was currently Borrowing might happen to have. Once the fire was crackling, she put the kettle on. She was in no rush. There was no reason to be. Esme would come back when she came back, and not a minute before. Only when she'd gotten everything situated did Nanny Ogg waddle her way back into Granny Weatherwax's bedroom.

_Snow on my muzzle, melting in my nostrils. A blast of breath takes care of that. The smell is getting stronger. Yes. There we are. The outer leaves are frozen too hard to peel them off. Crunch. Crunch crunch. Oh, what beautiful sweet crunchy hearts these cabbages have. What a fine thing. Crunch crunch crunch._

Death hovered behind Nanny Ogg as she lifted Esmerelda's hat from her head, revealing a sizeable knot of white hair which promptly unfurled itself enough to open big green eyes and yawn a gigantic pink yawn.

"Keeping her head warm, were You?" Nanny Ogg scooped up the tiny cat and handed her to Death. "Here, she'll want feeding. Esme keeps scraps in a dish in the corner of the cupboard, 'n if there aren't any, there's milk in a jar."

Death cuddled the cat, stroking her cheek with the tip of one rigid finger. You purred, and rubbed her face against his knuckles. Enchanted, he carried the cat into the cottage's main room, not even noticing the irritated whicker that came from outside.

_I said, slow down, greedy-guts! Those are my cabbages!_

Nanny Ogg, on the other hand, did notice the noise Binky made. And she noticed it more when he made it again. She could see the horse through the window, past his ankles in the snow, standing in the middle of Granny Weatherwax's vegetable garden. He had, it seemed, been having a whale of a time rooting out and eating Granny's cabbages as they whiled away the winter beneath their insulating blanket of snow. But now he stood there, a brilliant purple cabbage half-eaten at his feet, shaking his head as if flies were biting his ears. And it was much too cold for flies. Nanny squinted at the big white stallion. He stood with his front legs spread, his head cocked to one side, eyeing the purple cabbage with grave confusion.

"Well then," Nanny Ogg announced loudly, "I suppose Esme won't mind if I just take a tiny peek in that box of hers. What with her being off Borrowing and all. I expect she'll never know the difference. And I have always wanted to know who those letters were from that she keeps in there."

Nanny Ogg counted to five. On the bed below the window, Granny Weatherwax's eyelids twitched. Outside beyond it, Binky bit once again into the cabbage. Nanny Ogg nodded, pursed her lips, pulled up a chair, and waited.

Finally, Granny opened her eyes. Then she opened her mouth. "Gytha Ogg, what's in that box is no business of yours and you know it."

"And Borrowing Death's horse is yours?"

Granny Weatherwax pushed herself up and swung her legs off the side of the bed. "Well, I had to do something. He was going to come back for me, you know."

I BEG YOUR PARDON. I _HAVE_ COME BACK FOR YOU.

Both women looked around. Death stood in the doorway, a tray in his hands. He had put on one of Granny Weatherwax's aprons, and You wound herself around and around his ankles, weaving in and out of the folds of his robe. On the tray, the teapot steamed, and three mugs-Granny's full complement-stood ready, along with her sugar bowl, her two dented spoons, and a bowl of milk.

"I'm not going, you know," Granny blurted. "You aren't taking me anywhere."

Death gave Nanny Ogg a long look. Nanny Ogg shrugged. Death set the tea-tray down on the bedside table.

NO.

Granny Weatherwax looked at Nanny Ogg, then at Death, who was fumbling with untying the apron strings. Behind him, You batted at them, making the task more difficult.

Granny Weatherwax flapped her skirts to shoo away the cat, revealing a brief flash of red and white striped stockings above well-worn black boots. "No?"

THRICE HAVE I COME AND THRICE HAVE YOU REFUSED ME, ESMERELDA WEATHERWAX. NOW I MAY NOT COME AGAIN UNTIL YOU SUMMON ME.

With that, Death produced Granny Weatherwax's hourglass. He flipped it back over, so that the bit with her name on it was right-side up again. But now the sand did not move. If either Granny or Nanny had looked closely, in fact, they would have seen that two grains of sand hung frozen in midair, below the waist of the hourglass but not yet to the bottom. Death tucked it back into the mysterious pocket from which it had come.

Just then the cat gave a long, pitiful meow. Death turned back around. You was sitting just below the edge of the tea-tray, looking meaningfully up at the bowl of milk.

Granny Weatherwax looked again at Death, and then at Nanny Ogg. "You don't suppose that askin' if he wants to stay for tea counts as summonin'?"

Nanny shook her head. "Don't think so, no."

"Well, you'd better take the tea-tray back into the other room, then, Gytha," Granny Weatherwax snapped. "It ain't fitten for an unmarried lady to be seen having a gentleman caller in her bedroom."


End file.
